


Five Times Steve Rogers Felt Different, and One Time He Realized Why

by LapisLazooti



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1920s, 1930s, 5+1 Things, Coming Out, Gender Identity, Gender Roles, Menstruation, One Shot, Period-Typical Sexism, Self-Acceptance, Trans Male Author, Trans Male Character, Trans Steve Rogers, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapisLazooti/pseuds/LapisLazooti
Summary: Alternatively, the times Steve doesn't quite feel right in the role given to him at birth, and the time he finds comfort in realizing he can break out of it.





	Five Times Steve Rogers Felt Different, and One Time He Realized Why

**Author's Note:**

> A quick disclaimer:
> 
> Keep in mind that the mindset of these characters is one of the 20's and 30's, some even progressive for the time. So there's a hell of a lot of gender roles involved, and the way Steve discovers himself seems a bit superficial, only because there wasn't any talk about gender identity and therefore the only things he could really use to find himself was presentation.
> 
> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> Unintentional misgendering (before Steve truly knows himself), and talk about menstruation.

1\. 1921

When Steve was only four years old, he couldn't understand why James wasn't allowed to take baths with him and Rebecca. There was plenty of room in the big tub, wouldn't it be more fun to play in the water together? And save time? It didn't seem fair that he and Rebecca were able to play together, splash at each other while their mothers washed their hair, and James had to be in the tub by himself. 

James always looked so bored, too, like he needed a friend to play with. Rebecca was fun, but her brother was a year older than he was and just seemed a lot more fun. He had more toys, too. Train sets, marbles, and a steel bucket crane toy that looked just like the ones in construction sites they saw in the city. Those didn't have anything to do with bathtime, but Steve wanted to play with them anyway.

"Mama," Steve started, clutching the fabric of her dress in his little fist to give it a tug for attention. Winifred came to the house today to help his Ma out with housekeeping and keeping Steve occupied while she worked, bringing James and Becca around as well for a small playdate. He waddled into the kitchen where Sarah was making lunch for them after getting a bath to ask his pressing question.

"What is it, dear?"

"Why can't I take a bath with James?"

The way Sarah gave a lighthearted laugh like it was simply cute question to ask and not one to be taken seriously only made Steve far more confused. She knelt down, a caring smile spread across her lips as she got to eye level with him. "Because James is a boy, and girls and boys don't do things like that together."

Steve scrunched his nose up. That didn't sound quite right.

2\. 1925

Steve watched everyone else play from afar. He sat under a tree with his knees tucked up under his chin. The girls played jump rope on one side of the schoolyard, while the boys roughhoused on the other. His gaze flicked between the two, unsure and curious. He liked to play jump rope with Rebecca, but wrestling James was a lot more fun. He liked to play fight, and they were banned from doing it around either of their mothers now after James had accidentally given him a split lip and the two of them came into the house covered in mud. Winifred had said playing like that was for boys, but Steve didn't get why. It was just fun. Sarah's only concern was that Steve was a lot weaker than other children... Which he supposed was reasonable, as much as he hated it.

If they couldn't do it then, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to go wrestle now when their mothers weren't around to scold them for it.

So Steve jumped up, straightening the skirt of his dress out before running over to where his classmates played, even if it was a little bit hard to breathe running into the wind. The boys stopped in their tracks when they saw him approach. James had one of the other kids in a headlock while a couple of others tried to push him off of the flailing kid, all of them laughing. Until they saw Steve. The laughing ceased and all of the pushing and flailing stopped. Steve felt like their eyes were burning right through him.

"Can I play with you?" He asked, wringing his hands behind his back in nervous habit.

"No girls allowed! Beat it, Mary." Protested the poor sap hooked in James' lock - perhaps not the best position to be in while turning your attacker's best friend away. James tightened his grip.

"Nah, she's berries."

"What's that mean?"

"Mean's she's good. A lot tougher than she looks." James flashed Steve a grin, one of his missing baby teeth creating a big, goofy looking gap between the line of otherwise pretty nice teeth. It was cute, Steve thought. The other boys just shrugged, dismissing their earlier qualms and picking up right where they left off.

Steve ended up giving one kid a bloody nose. Got a real big scolding for that and had to write thirty lines of 'i will not fight with the boys' as punishment, though the satisfaction of proving himself and the respect from the other boys (that wouldn't last long, admittedly) was worth it.

3\. 1928

He held his paper down as the wind whipped around him, golden locks blowing into his face and obscuring his vision. It was real hard to draw like this. 

It was a nice enough day. The sun was warm in the sky, the only clouds to be seen were tucked away in the distance and produced by factories somewhere far away. Steve wasn't sure if that was true, but he'd like it if it were. There was still dew in the grass and he was probably going to get scolded for getting wet by sitting in it. He couldn't help it! He wanted to sit outside and draw, feel the cool grass between his toes as he sketched. It'd be perfect, too, if the breeze wasn't so harsh today.

"Mary!" Bucky's voice rang out, giving him little warning to be able to look up before he essentially pounced down next to him. Their shoulders banged together and the led of his pencil slid across the width of the paper.

Steve huffed, giving his friend a half-playful shove. The other half was just mad. "You made me mess it up!" 

"Here, gimme that- I bet I can fix it." Bucky all but snatched the sketchbook from him, took one look, and his brows furrow together. Steve hoped it was because it wasn't the usual landscapes or animals he'd been drawing lately. Deep down he knew the reaction was because of what it really was. "Is that you? Why you got short hair?"

He felt like he was going to throw up. He couldn't put his finger on why, or why it felt so scandalous for his best friend to catch him drawing something like this. He didn't fully know why he was drawing it in the first place - something about it just seemed... Good. Either way, he nabbed the book back from him and hugged it to his chest. Steve's eyes welled with tears, and he ducked his head down so his hair would create a curtain between Bucky and his quivering lips. Why was he so upset? Why did he feel scared, ashamed? Ashamed of wanting what he had drawn? Girls should have long hair, that's why. All the girls at school did. Ma did. "It's not me," He defended.

"Oh. Well, it kinda looks like you. I think you'd look good with hair like that."

4\. 1930 

"It's your body preparing you to have a baby when you're ready for one," Sarah explained when Steve came in panicking about a splotch of blood in his underwear. There a few things that rubbed him the wrong way about that.

That sounded horrifying. Both the having a baby part, and that he was just... bleeding. He was no stranger to bloody noses and split lips even at only twelve, but bleeding like this seemed a lot more serious. Scarier. And with something so horrifying, why hadn't his Ma warned him that this was going to happen? What other weird, unexplained changes were going to happen to his body? Everything that had happened so far felt weird and wrong, and this was no exception. "I'm just a kid."

"I know, sweetheart, but you'll be a woman soon."

Steve crossed his arms over his chest, over the growing, unwanted and uncomfortable bumps there. The feeling of underlying unease that seemed to plague bits and pieces of his life since he was so little surfaced again upon hearing those words, and he felt sick. Something was horribly wrong. Whether it was something with him or the world around him, he couldn't decide, but something wasn't right. He liked long hair and pretty faces, liked how dresses fit over the curves of women's bodies. He liked it, but all of those things always seemed not-quite-right on him. Like a puzzle piece that didn't fit, but was jammed into the picture anyways. But men's clothes - he loved the suits and the slicked back hair, the shiny shoes and button up shirts. Whether those would feel right either, he didn't know. That scared him.

5\. 1932

Steve had gotten more into reading, lately. He didn't have too many friends, and though he found it just as pathetic as everyone else he'd told this to, the characters in these novels made for good placeholders as friends. When he was lonely, he'd immerse himself in their world, get completely swept up in it. Imagine himself as one of the characters to fully connect himself to the story.

Right now in the middle Pride and Prejudice, it was no different. Though he usually saw himself as the main protagonist, he wasn't Elizabeth. He'd put himself in the role of Mr. Darcy, though he really had nothing in common with him. He wanted to be him and he couldn't figure out why. Was it because he was rich? That seemed too superficial.

1933

With only him and Bucky in the Barnes household right now, he couldn't contain his curiousity anymore. He could hold himself back when he was over for dinner and everyone was around, but with Becca over at another friend's house and Winifred working at the clinic, Steve had to know.

"Wha- Where're you goin'?" Bucky followed him into his bedroom where Steve made a b-line to raid his dresser. Steve had never seen him so confused, 'specically since he'd never talked to him about... Wanting to try on his clothes. It was a weird conversation he'd tried to avoid lest he got in trouble for it. But he needed to know if it felt as good as he thought it was after years of trying and failing to push back the curiousity into the depths of his mind. Not Bucky's clothes specifically; but men's clothes.

Steve didn't supply an answer. He only spoke when his dress was bunched up around his feet and Bucky had long since whipped around to turn his back to his barely-clothed form.

"Jesus, Mary! The hell's gotten into you?" He covered his face with his hands despite not even looking at him to begin with. 

"Keep it together. It's nothin' special, don't gotta act like you're lookin' straight at the sun." Bucky looking at him when he didn't have any clothes on should bother him, right? All of the girls he knew were so modest around the boys. They were all supposed to be pure and to never show much skin. But he didn't care for the same reasons they did, at least he didn't think so. He just didn't want people to look at him at all.

Steve slipped on one of Bucky's button-ups, his shaky hands threading each button through it's the hole. The cuffs of the sleeves fell over his hands and the hem settled well below his hips where it should have. His pants were just as big on him, barely fitting around his hips enough to stay on. The jacket he threw on hid how poorly the garments beneath it fit, for the most part.

"Can you at least tell me why you decided to strip as soon as we get into my house?"

"I wanna see what I look like." He didn't elaborate any more than that. If he feels wrong in these clothes, too, describing what he thought he'd feel wouldn't do any good anyway. His last step was one of Bucky's favorite hats. He tucked his hair into the back of it and took the few steps to the mirror, the few steps to possible closure to the question that's been plaguing him.

The sound he made got Bucky to turn around, the look of confusion still ingrained in his features. Steve didn't see it, too focused on the boy looking back at him. The boy that might have always been looking at him, and he'd only recognized him in this moment. Baggy clothes be damned, that was him. Even if he did look like a little kid dressing up in his Pa's clothes. "You look like a boy." There wasn't any disgust or judgment in Bucky's voice. It was merely a truthful statement.

"I... Am, I think." He didn't understand why he felt like this or how that even worked, but he was sure of the rising suspicion he'd had, now. It went against everything he knew and was taught about himself, but this was right. "I'm meant to be a boy." Steve tore his eyes away from his reflection to look at Bucky with tears and fire in his eyes. He always fought for what he wanted, and he needed this. Now that he was completely sure of himself, he'd never be able to live his life the same way he had been. 

His best friend that's been with him and known him as Mary since the day he was born only blinked at the confession. The look in Steve's eyes was law. If he said that with such certainty, with such intensity, this wasn't a joke or something said on a whim. "Okay."

"Okay?" 

"Okay. Never really seen you as a girl if I'm bein' honest, you've always just been you. If you say you're a boy, then you know better than I do."

Steve looked down, the corners of his mouth pulling up into a small smile. He'd never heard of anyone who felt the way he did. He didn't know what he could do about it or how he could pull off living as a man, but he sure as hell was gonna try.


End file.
